1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a joint connector for shorting a plurality of terminal fittings, a joint terminal forming the joint connector and a production method for joint terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H09-115612 discloses a joint terminal that has tabs projecting from a plate-shaped coupling that has been bent into substantially U-shape. The joint terminal is mounted in a housing made of a synthetic resin to define a joint connector for shorting terminal fittings arranged at upper and lower stages. The coupling is comprised of an upper support for supporting the tabs to be connected with terminal fittings at the upper stage, a lower support for supporting the tabs to be connected with the terminal fittings at the lower stage, and an intermediate portion coupling the upper and lower supports.
The above-described joint terminal with tabs projecting from a substantially U-shaped coupling could be made from chained terminals that have tabs supported on a long narrow carrier. The chained terminals could then be fed parallel with the longitudinal direction of the carrier, and a leading section of the chained terminals with respect to feeding direction could be bent into a substantially U-shape. This bent section then could be cut off from the chained terminals. Specifically, the upper support would be formed first by bending a leading end of the chained terminals substantially at right angles. The chained terminals would be bent again substantially at right angles at a position more backward than the first bend with respect to feeding direction to form the intermediate portion. An area behind the second bend then would become the lower support. In this way, the substantially U-shaped coupling portion is formed.
Successively bending the leading section of the chained terminals twice with respect to feeding direction can provide high dimensional precision when a special press machine performs the bending. However, dimensional precision is difficult to obtain if the double bending is performed by an automatic mounting machine for mounting an already-produced joint terminal in a housing.
The invention was developed in view of the above problems and an object is to enable the production of a joint terminal with high precision even in an automatic mounting machine for mounting a joint terminal into a housing.